This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Blog Day :

3526

Post No. :

14163

Pandit Narayan Prasad ‘Betaab’ (1872-1945), Agha Hashr Kashmiri (1879-1935) and Pandit Radhe Shyam Katha Vaachak (1890-1963) are regarded as a troika of Parsi theatre. They were the most popular among the playwrights of their time. Their works took the Parsi theatre to the zenith of its glory. This is well recognised in most of the literature on the history of Indian theatres. While Betaab and Radhe Shyam have been credited for popularising plays in Hindi, Agha Hashr Kashmiri had done the pioneering work in Urdu drama.

However, all the three playwrights switched over to Hindustani in the peak of their careers in theatres for easy understanding as they found larger audience for such plays than before. Probably, this might be the one of the reasons as to why in the era of talkies, most of the films were made in Hindustani instead of pure Hindi or Urdu. In fact, in the initial period, talkie films were an extension of Parsi theatre dramas.

Pandit Radhe Shyam Katha Vaachak (25/11/1890 – 26/08/1963) was born in Bareilly in a poor Brahmin family. His father, Pandit Bankelal was a good singer and used to sing in Ram Lila. From the childhood, Radhe Shyam used to accompany his father to Ram Lila. At the age of 8, Radhe Shyam learnt playing harmonium from his father and started singing during Ram Lila along with his father. Most of the time, Ramayan and other mythological stories were sung. Growing up in this environment made the young Radhe Shyam to pursue the vocation of Katha Vaachak (story-teller).

Though Radhe Shyam seems to have left the school before completing his primary level, he was well versed with Urdu, Awadhi and Brijbhasha besides Hindi . By the age of 12, Radhe Shyam started composing poems and also performing as a Katha Vaachak. Simultaneously, he learnt music from Ustad Rahat Ali Khan.

By the turn of the 20th Century, theatre companies in India had made their presence felt, mostly in urban and semi-urban centres. The Parsi theatres played an important role in staging dramas all over India. The New Alfred Theatrical Company of Bombay (now Mumbai) used to visit Bareilly every year to stage their popular plays. The themes of the plays were mostly historical and mythological stories though some time social and political issues were also covered in the plays. Radhe Shyam was exposed to these types of plays as his father usually took him to watch the plays staged by The New Alfred Theatrical Company.

Meanwhile, Radhe Shyam’s performance as a Katha Vaachak and his father’s singing drew attention of Pandit Motilal Nehru who was looking for a Ramayan singer to entertain his ailing wife. Both father and son spent over a month in Pandit Motilal Nehru’s residence, Anand Bhawan in Allahabad singing the story of Ramayan. With this kind of accreditation, Radhe Shyam started performing as Katha Vaachak at various places in North India.

Around 1910, Radhe Shyam’s career as story-teller took a turn when he got interested in theatre. The inspiration for this change came from the play ’Khoobsoorat Bala’ written by Agha Hashr Kashmiri and directed by Soharabji Ogra. He liked the play so much that he decided to become a playwright. An opportunity came to him when The New Albert Company of Punjab came to Bareilly and visited Radhe Shyam’s house to enlist his services for revising the script of their play ‘Ramayan’. While staging this play in the royal palace, the Maharaja of Jaipur had found faults and his secretary had recommended Radhe Shyam’s name for the revision.

After a month’s work, The New Albert staged the revised ‘Ramayan’ for which Radhe Shyam was given the additional responsibility of directing the play in place of Abdul Rehman Kabuli who was an actor in the play. Master Nisaar played the role of Seeta. The play became successful and Radhe Shyam’s name became well known in the theatre circle.

Some of Radhe Shyam’s famous and hit Hindi/Hindustani plays were ‘Veer Abhimanyu’ (1916), ‘Shravan Kumar’ (1916), ‘Parivartan’ (1925), ‘Shri Krishnavtaar’ (1926), ‘Rukmini Mangal’ (1927), ‘Ishwar Bhakti’ (1928), and ‘Draupadi Swaymvar’ (1929). He also wrote an Urdu play ‘Mashriqui Hoor’ (1926). Most of his plays were staged by The New Alfred Theatrical Company. He became New Alfred’s full time employee as a playwright. During his theatre days, Pandit Radhe Shyam continued to perform as Katha Vaachak. In fact, he used to devote time for the theatre works only when he was free from his main vocation.

However, due to his frequent bout of illness, Pandit Radhe Shyam’s long stint with New Alfred ended in August 1930 when he resigned from the Company. After recovery from his illness, Pandit Radhe Shyam got the offer from Maadan Theatres (of Calcutta (now Kolkatta)) to write dialogues and songs from their second talkie film ‘Shankutala’ (1931). The film was directed by JJ Maadan who wanted as many songs in this film, as in their first talkie film ‘Shirin Farhad’ (1931). Pandit Radhe Shyam had to work the long hours for writing the songs which were picturised on the same day as he completed each song of the

Being a puritan in nature Pandit Radhe Shyam could not adjust to the working environment in the theatre and film studios, in which actors were smoking and drinking. In 1933, Pandit Radhe Shyam left Calcutta for Bareilly. Though offers were coming to him from the film production companies, he selected very few films such as ‘Shri Sataynarayan’ (1935) ‘Khudai Khidmatgar’ (1937), ‘Usha Haran’ (1940, as story and screen-play writer), ‘Jhansi Ki Raani’ (1952) and ‘Krishna Sudama’ (1957). He took all these assignments when he was on private visits to Bombay.

In 1940, Pandit Radhe Shyam decided to stop earning money and to devote most of his time as Katha Vaachak free of cost. He became the disciple of Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya in pursuit of his social activities including Ganga Mahasabha. He toured the entire north India to propagate the use of Hindi. After the death of his elder son in October 1947 and of his wife sometime in 1957 Pandit Radhe Shyam fully devoted his time to the reading of Holy Scriptures and performing as a Katha Vaachak.

Pandit Radhe Shyam left for the heavenly abode on 26th August 1963 in Bareilly leaving his legacy in Radhe Shyam Ramayan and a dozens of his popular dramas.

Sometime in 1920s, Pandit Radhe Shyam Katha Vaachak, wrote the epic poem ‘Ramayan’ for the masses in the simple language (in Hindustani). He wrote the epic poem in 24 parts and got published in his own printing press set up for this purpose in 1939. To make the print copies of his version of Ramayan affordable to the masses, he fixed a nominal price of Re.1/-. The Radhe Shyam Ramayan as it is known today became so popular that almost all Ramlilas were staged based on his Ramayan in the Hindi belt. In Ramanand Sagar’s TV serial ‘Ramayan’ telecast during 1987-88, one of the sources mentioned in the credit title was Radhe Syham Ramayan. Later on. with his involvement in propagating Hindi, Pandit Radhe Shyam converted the language from Hindustani to pure Hindi.

In 1947, Pandit Radhe Shyam thought of producing a film based on his Ramayan, titled ‘Ram Janm’. He had roped in his close friends Prithviraj Kapoor and Chandramohan for the main roles who had agreed to work free of cost for him. First, the film was to be shot in the studios of Kolhapur/Poona. The cost worked out much higher than the budget. On the suggestion of some of his well-wishers, he decided to produce the film in a Calcutta studio where the cost would have worked out within his budget. A financier from Calcutta was found and Rameshwar Sharma was taken as the director.

Before, the film’s shooting could commence, Hindu-Muslim riots broke out in Bengal. After a few days, Pandit Radhe Shyam had to rush back to Bareilly to attend to his elder son who was seriously ill. He later died of illness. Around the same time, his film’s financier as well as the director, Rameshwar Sharma, also passed away. Ultimately, the film ‘Ram Janm’ was scrapped. Pandit Radhe Shyam’s wish to produce a film on Ramayan story remained unfulfilled.

Today’s generation may not know much about Pandit Radhe Shyam Katha Vaachak of his contributions to the Indian theatre. However, I am sure he is well known especially in the Hindi belt for his Radhe Shyam Ramayan through Ram Leela.

As mentioned earlier, Pandit Radhe Shyam had decided in 1940 that he would stop working for money. So the films for which he worked as a dialogue writer/lyricist in 1940 and thereafter was free of charge to the producers.

One of Pandit Radhe Shyam’s earliest films in Bombay was ‘Khudai Khidmatgar’ (1937). The film was produced under the banner of Bharat Lakshmi Pictures and was directed by Vithaldas Panchotia. The star cast included Mazhar Khan, Sarla Devi, Vithaldas Panchotia, Khalil Ahmed, JN Dar (Kashmiri), Shayam Sunder, Rampiyari, Radha Rani, Fida Hussain, Nand Kishore, Vilayat Hussain etc. The film had 10 songs, out of which this one is written by Pandit Radhe Shyam. As for the remaining nine, the Geet Kosh lists the lyricist name as Tanveer. However, some online sources credit the songwriting of these 9 songs to Aarzoo Lakhnavi. The songs were set to music by Nagar Das Nayak.

I am presenting the first song ‘Ye Suna Hai Maine Jaadu Hai Rajaji Ke Pad Pankaj Mein’ written by Pandit Radhe Shyam. The complete song is of the duration of more than 6 minutes, and it is published on two sides of the 78 rpm record no. N 16020.

It is in the fitness of thing that this song has been sung by Fida Hussain who was discovered by none other than Pandit Radhe Shyam in 1918 as actor-singer for female roles for plays staged by The New Alfred Theatrical Company. An autobiography of Fida Hussain was written by Pratibha Agrawal under the title ‘My 50 Years in Parsi Theatre’ (1986) on the basis of a series of interviews with him. Since this article has already become too long, I will not add the life sketch of Fida Hussain. One important note about him – in 1939 he donned the title role of Narsi Mehta in the play ‘Narsi Mehta’. The play became a hugely popular hit and it ran for over 1000 nights. Because of this, Fida Hussain was honoured with the title ‘Narsi’ which he proudly used as suffix to his name as Fida Hussain ‘Narsi’.

The song under discussion is one episode taken from Radhe Shyam Ki Ramayan and it has been rendered as katha vaachan (story-telling). It describes the episode from the initial days of banwaas when Lord Ramchandra, Seeta and Lakshman were required to cross the river Ganga. The boatman recognising Lord Ram said that he would like to wash Lord Ram’s feet before he allowed Him to step on to his boat as he had heard that with the dust of His feet, a statue made of stone turned into a woman. So he does not want his wooden boat turned into many women. With his meagre earnings as a boatman, he does not have enough to take care of them. Pleased with the innocence of the boatman, Lord Ram permitted him to wash His feet.

After washing Lord Ram’s feet, the boatman ferried them across the Ganga river. As they alighted, Seeta Maata handed over Her ring to Lord Ram to pass on to the boatman as the payment for ferry as they had no money to offer. The boatman refused to accept the ring. He then explained to Lord Rama that people from the same profession do not take the payment for the services rendered to each other. A labourer would not accept payment from another labourer and a boatman would not accept payment from another boatman.

Lord Ram responded that He and the boatman were not in the same profession. To which, the boatman further explained that both of them did the same service. The boatman ferried people from one shore to another and Lord Ram ferried people across the ocean of this world (bhavsaagar) during the journey of life. The boatman further said that if Lord Ram did not want to feel obligated to him, He can pay His debt by taking the boatman across the ocean of world.

Since Fida Hussain acted in this film, it is apparent that the song was picturised on him. Incidentally, the role of Fida Hussain in the film was that of a Hindu Commander to the Muslim King.

With this song, ‘Khudai Khidmatgar’ (1937) makes its debut on our blog.

[Author’s Note: Acknowledgements: The bio sketch of Pandit Radheshyam Kathavaachak is based on the English translation of his autobiography ‘Mera Natak Kaal’ (1957), incorporated in the book, ‘Stages of Life – Indian Theatre Autobiographies’ (2011) by Kathryn Hansen; plus inputs from a couple of articles on him which appeared in Hindi/English newspapers.]

This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Blog Day :

3520

Post No. :

14137

Today, March 8th is the 97th birth anniversary of Sahir Ludhianvi, one of my favourite poet-lyricists. Before him, there were other eminent Urdu poets such as Arzoo Lucknowi, Safdar Aah Sitapuri, Behzad Lucknowi, Josh Malihabadi etc who had been associated with the Hindi film industry sometime or the other. But it was Sahir Ludhianvi who clicked with the Hindi film industry as a poet and raised the status of the lyricists. Eventually, he created such a status for himself in the Hindi film industry that some of the established producers/directors first took him on board before finalising the music directors for their films.

The traumatic childhood and the failed love affairs coupled with his leftist ideological leanings, are reflected in his ghazals and nazms published in the book ‘Talkhiyaan‘ (‘Bitternesses’) in 1945. However, it was his association with the Hindi film industry which gave him the opportunity to write film songs in the poetic form covering almost all the facets of human life. Some samples below:

In addition, Sahir Sahab also wrote other genres such as qawwali, patriotic songs, devotional songs etc. A question is raised as to what is so unique about Sahir Sahab’s songs? His contemporary Urdu poets like Shakeel Badayuni, Majrooh Sultanpuri and Kaifi Azmi also wrote many genres of songs for the films. In my view, the main difference was that Sahir Sahab’s songs were an extension of his literary poetry (adabi shaayari) while the others wrote mostly lyrics for the songs. While Majrooh Sultanpuri and Kaifi Azmi rarely mixed the PWA ideology in their film songs, Sahir Sahab’s songs covered such thoughts even in some fun songs in films like ‘Taxi Driver’ (1954), ‘Funtoosh’ (1956) and ‘Pyaasa’ (1957).

We should be thankful to Sahir Sahab for joining the Hindi film industry. Had he remained away from Hindi film industry and concentrated only on the literary Urdu poetry, we would have certainly missed the range of his poetry in the Hindi film songs. Surely, he would have joined the list of the Urdu poets of pains, bitterness and sorrows like Mir Taqi Mir, Faani Badayuni, Majaaz Lucknowi, Sudarshan Faakir etc. But in this process, he would have missed ‘the poet of mass appeal’ tag.

Again, I would say that Sahir Sahab’s association with Hindi film industry perforce made him to look for the brighter side of the life. Note how he starts one of the songs in ‘Shagoon’ (1964) in a pessimistic note and ends with optimism:

Sahir Sahab first came to Bombay (now Mumbai) in January 1946. He began his filmy career in the same year with an assignment to write songs for the film ‘Aazaadi Ki Raah Par’ under the baton of music director GD Kapoor. He wrote 3 songs for this film. (The film’s release was delayed and it got released only in 1948). After this assignment, there is a gap of about 3 years in his filmy career. When partition happened he returned to Lahore in September 1947 to search for and bring back his mother. Sometime in the middle of 1948, he had to hurriedly leave Lahore. After returning, he first came to Delhi, where he occupied himself editing an Urdu periodical for about a year. In May 1949, he came to Bombay with a resolve to become a song writer for the films.

The greatest handicap for Sahir Sahab in pursuing his career in film industry was that he was already a popular Urdu poet with his published work ‘Talkhiyaan’ (1945). The film industry is generally wary of poets’ capabilities of writing lyrics for the songs for given situations in the films. After struggling for about 2 years, he got the opportunity to write songs for the film ‘Naujawaan’ (1951) under SD Burman. The box office success of ‘Baazi’ (1951) in the same year with its hit songs gave a boost to his career in the film industry. During 1951-57, Sahir Sahab majorly worked with SD Burman (138 songs out of 218).

Sahir Ludhianvi’s ‘obsession’ to place his song writings above the contributions of singers and music directors seems to have come into open sometime in mid 1950s when he had arguments with Lata Mangeshkar on this issue. It is a moot point whether it was Lata Mangeshkar who refused to sing his songs or other way round. But the end result was that Sahir lost 9 out of 11 films because producers/directors will have Lata Mangeshkar rather than Sahir Ludhianvi [Source: Javed Akhtar on TV programme ‘Classic Legends’]. Two films which remained with him were ‘Pyaasa’ (1957) and ‘Naya Daur’ (1957) in which Lata Mangeshkar had no songs. But it was these two films which gave him the status as a song writer par excellence. Here Sahir Sahab proved his point that his songs could still become popular without Lata Mangeshkar.

However, the success of these two films also resulted in the termination of Sahir Sahab’s association with two top music directors at that time – SD Burman and OP Nayyar due to clash of egos. Again, the issue raised was that it was his songs more than the music that these two films became hits. In support of his claims, he started quoting his fees for song writings in a film one rupee above the amount agreed to be paid to the music director of that film. With his tiffs with the top playback singer and two top music directors of that time, many in the Hindi film industry must have felt at that time that Sahir Sahab committed a hara-kiri and his filmy career was doomed.

While Sahir Sahab eventually made up with Lata Mangeshkar, now it was the time for him to prove that his songs can still become popular in the films without the services of the commercially top rated music directors of that time. He roped in music director Khayyam for ‘Phir Subah Hogi’ (1958), N Dutta for ‘Dhool Ka Phool’ (1959) and Roshan for ‘Barsaat Ki Raat’ (1960). While the first film did not fare well at the box office, its songs became very popular. The other two films were super hits on the box office. In this process, Sahir Sahab not only retained his eminent position in the film industry as a song writer, he became instrumental in giving boost the sagging careers of music directors, Khayyam, Roshan and later Ravi (‘Gumraah’, 1963).

In the 1960s, he worked mainly with the second line music directors but had super hit films like ‘Hum Dono’ (1961), ‘Dil Hi To Hai’ (1963), ‘Gumraah’ (1963), ‘Mujhe Jeene Do’ (1963), ‘Taj Mahal’ (1963), ‘Kaajal’ (1965), ‘Waqt’ (1965), ‘Hamraaz’ (1967), ‘Aankhen’ (1968). Some of the films which did not fare well at the box office but their songs are remembered even today were ‘Aaj Aur Kal’ (1963), ‘Chitralekha’ (1964), ‘Ghazal’ (1964), ‘Shagoon’ (1964) and ‘Bahu Begum’ (1967).

There is no denying the fact that there is something magical in Sahir Sahab’s song writings. Most of his songs struck a chord with the audience and the listeners. My own experiences in listening to some of his songs are that his lyrics are the characteristic that first registered in my mind, for most of his songs.

There is a quote in the fashion world – the dress must follow the body and not the body following the shape of the dress. If this quote is extended to film songs, one can say that a beautiful body (lyrics) brings out the best in the dress (music). Sahir Sahab believed that it is the beautiful poetry which brings best of the music composition. He became more forthcoming in keeping his song writings ahead of the music director after the success of ‘Pyaasa’ (1957). In my view, he was not off the mark, particularly for his popular songs.

In my younger days, when I had listened to “Ye Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaaye To Kya Hai” and “Jinhen Naaz Hai Hind Par Wo Kahaan Hain”, the lyrics came to my attention first because they were soulful, momentarily forgetting the contributions of playback singer and the music director. The reason was that the first verse itself created interest in me to listen to the full lyrics. That SD Burman composed the orchestration with bare minimum musical instruments and Rafi sang in a soft voice are the recognition of the importance of the lyrics of these two songs. Probably, this was also the intention of Guru Dutt as a director.

“Jaane Kya Tu Ne Kahi Jaane Kya Maine Suni” brought the singer (Geeta Dutt) to the fore in my mind because of her seductive rendition. Yet, he is successful in bringing the words also in the forefront despite the fact that he had written the song on a pre-set tune. The reason is that this song has been written in short verses – mostly within 4 words. In the context of today’s world, one can say the song has been written in Whatsapp language – short yet effective to convey the message.

Even the dream sequence song, “Hum Aapki Aankhon Mein Is Dil Ko Basaa Den To” which was said to be added in the film on the insistence of film distributor/financier, the imageries used in the song for teasing are unique and remain in the mind of the listeners. This was basically a ‘relief’ song for the audience in the midst of sad and depressing theme of the film. Generally, such type of ‘addition’ of the song goes out of mind quickly but this song became unforgettable.

I will stop analysing the remaining songs of ‘Pyaasa’ at this stage. Sahir Sahab’s list of beautiful film songs is endless. In fact, one can attempt to write a separate article on each of Sahir Sahab’s films about his songs especially of his films like ‘Phir Subah Hogi’ (1958), ‘Dhool Kaa Phool’ (1959), ‘Barsaat Ki Raat’ (1960), ‘Taj Mahal’ (1963), ‘Dil Hi To Hai’ (1963), ‘Ghazal’ (1964), ‘Chitralekha’ (1964), ‘Waqt’ (1965) etc

In the 70s, Sahir Sahab continued to be in demand but his charisma in his song writings seems to have somewhat waned. This could be because of two main reasons. First, he was basically a romantic poet and the romantic theme in the films had given way for action-oriented themes with angry man image. It appears he had a premonition about this when he first wrote the nazm “Main Pal Do Pal Ka Shaayar Hoon“.

Secondly, after the death of his mother in 1976, he seems to have lost interest in song writing. Also, his PWA friends were advising him to concentrate more on writing literary poetry. It is said that he had almost decided to reduce his commitments for song writing and concentrate more on literary poetry. However, before he could complete his films’ commitments, a massive heart attack took him away from us on October 25, 1980 at the age of 59.

Sahir Sahab’s life can be summed up in one verse of his nazm Faraar published in ‘Talkhiyaan’ (1945):

ishq naakaam sahi zindagi naakaam nahin

Sahir Sahab’s love affairs failed but he lived his life at his own terms and immensely contributed to the making of the golden era of Hindi film music. During the three decades of his association with Hindi film industry, he wrote 732 songs in 114 films worked with 30 music directors. Details are given in the table below:

It can be observed that out of 732 songs Sahir Ludhianvi wrote during his filmy career, as many as 479 songs (65%) were written for just 5 music director – S D Burman (138), Ravi (131), N Dutta (109), Roshan (59) and Khayyam (42). He had no occasion to write songs for big names like Naushad and Shankar-Jaikishan and the second line music directors like Salil Chaudhury, SN Tripathi etc.

On the occasion of 97th birth anniversary of Sahir Ludhianvi, I have chosen the song “Hum Jab Chalen To Ye Jahaan Jhoome”, the only song he wrote for the film ‘Hum Hindustani’ (1960). This is a motivational song for the youngsters and is aptly sung by Mohammed Rafi under the baton of Usha Khanna.

This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Blog Day :

3502

Post No. :

14068

I became aware of a Hindi film ‘called Virginia’ (1940) nearly 2 years back. My first impression was that the film may be based on some Hollywood movie. Google search for details of this film did not yield much as most of the results pertained to a few Hollywood films of the same name in or around that name. The film did not find mention in ‘Filmindia’ magazine pertaining to the years 1939-41. Later on, I did get some details about the film in ‘list of Bollywood movies of 1940’ on Wikipedia which described the film as an ‘action’ film directed by K M Multani with a star cast of Manjula, W M Khan, Rajkumari, Pratap and David. Khan Mastana was the music director.

A couple of days back, I came across a High Court Judgement dated March 25, 1942 concerning K M Multani vs. Paramount Talkies of India. Being a law student myself once upon a time, I am interested in reading the court judgements, especially of the court cases pertaining to per-independence days. In the judgement, I got to know some more details about the film ‘Virginia’ (1940) and some interesting twist.

‘Virginia’ (1940) was made under the banner of A E M Multani Productions. The star cast mentioned in the judgement included Manjula, Pratap, W M Khan, David, Jamila and thousands of others. The film story idea was conceived by K M Multani sometime towards the end of 1939. Shooting of the film commenced in April 1940 at Bharatiya Studio. On May 16, 1940, the title of the film ‘Virginia’ was registered with Sub-Registrar in Bombay (Mumbai). The film was completed in August 1940 and advertisement of the film commenced in a limited way in September 1940. Censor Certificate was obtained for the film in November 1940. The film was released in Bombay on March 16, 1941 in Minerva theatre. The film ran for two weeks. The film was to be released elsewhere in India.

K M Multani, the producer-director had decided to produce this film on a grand scale just to prove a point that Indian film industry can also make spectacular films on the scale of Hollywood. The idea was to get ‘ high-brow westernised Indians who patronised the foreign films exclusively, to see in Indian films something which they would not find in Hollywood films even’. The story revolved around an imaginary war between Greeks and Romans about 4000 BC. In the film, Virginia was the name of the heroine.

It so happened that Paramount Pictures also conceived a film with a similar title ‘Virginia’ (1941) in 1939 and in December 1939, the title of the film was registered in the USA. The shooting of the film commenced more or less at the same time in the USA as that of ‘Virginia’ (1940). The film was released in USA in February 1941 and in Calcutta and Mumbai in May 1941. It was a family drama set against the background of an estate in Virginia, one of the States in the USA. The theme of the film was contemporary.

When the Paramount Pictures’ film was released in Calcutta and Bombay in May 1941, K M Multani filed a suit in a Bombay court to restrain the exhibition of Paramount film ‘Virginia’ (1941) with the same name on the ground that it would result in misleading a section of the cinegoers. He also claimed the damages for loss of box office collections of his film due to ‘passing off’ ‘Virginia’ (1941) as ‘Virginia’ (1940).

The lower court dismissed the suit on the grounds that no one can claim the sole monopoly of the title ‘Virginia’ as it is a geographical name. There was no reason to believe that Paramount’s film could mislead the cinegoers as the film is in English and the Multani’s film is in Hindustani. Also the story of the both the films are quite different. Even the advertisements of both the films make it very clear that both these films are different in terms of the language, the star cast and the themes of the films. The other point was that both the films were conceptualised, shot and released almost contemporaneously without the knowledge of each other. So there was no mala fide intention.

K M Multani filed an appeal in Bombay High Court against the judgement of the lower court. The High Court upheld the judgment of the lower court and dismissed the appeal with costs. Those interested in reading the detailed judgements, both of the lower court and the High Court can read here.

I am not sure whether K M Multani got ‘Virginia’ (1940) released at other places in India. The fact that the film ran only for two weeks in one theatre in Bombay would indicate that the film was a box office failure. I find that, later K M Multani re-joined Minerva Movietone to direct ‘Vasiyat’ (1940) and there after ‘Ujaala’ (1942). His filmy career almost came to an end with his home production ‘Umang’ (1944). I came to know from the former ‘Filmfare’ editor, B K Karanjia’s book ‘Counting My Blessings’ that K M Multani became the founding editor of trade journal ‘ Film Age’ and retired from film industry to become an estate agent.

‘Virginia’ (1940) had 8 songs written by Ehsaan Rizvi which were set to music by Khan Mastana. None of the songs has yet been represented on the Blog. Today, I present the first song from the film ‘diwaani tu kyaa jaane’ to appear on the Blog. The name of the playback singer is not mentioned. There are two other songs in the film which were identified to be that of Miss Iqbal (or Iqbal Bibi) who has a high-pitched voice. As against this, the voice in the song under discussion is a soft one.

Since Manjula (Manju Diwan, wife of Karan Diwan) is in the cast of the film, I checked her voices in the songs from the films ‘Gaali’ (1944) and ‘Chaand’ (1944). I am convinced that the voice in the song under discussion is that of Manjula (Manju). At the time of making of the film, Manjula was 16 years old and the voice sounds like that of a teenager.

A feature of this song is that there is a long prelude music (0:33) followed by a long interlude (0:42) and the end music (0:20). As a result, the lyrics of the song has space in the disc for about 2:00 minutes.

This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Blog Day :

3493

Post No. :

14034

The box office successes of ‘Chaudhvin Ka Chaand’ (1960) and ‘Taj Mahal’ (1963) were mainly attributed to musical bonanzas they offered to the cinegoers in general. In that process, the captain of the ships, i.e., the director of the films who had an important role in making the films the box office success was largely ignored. In those days, like many, I identified the first film with Guru Dutt and the music director Ravi. In case of ‘Taj Mahal’ (1963), I identified the film with the musical and lyrical feasts of Roshan and Sahir Ludhianvi. I was not aware at that time that these two successful films were directed by M Sadiq.

After few years when I did come to know of M Sadiq, I thought of him as a new upcoming director who specialised in directing Muslim social and historical films. This was borne out of the facts that his subsequent two films were ‘Bahu Begum’ (1967) and ‘Noor Jahan’ (1967). How wrong I was!

Last year, while doing a research on producer-director AR Kardar, I became aware of the fact that M Sadiq (10/03/1910 – 03/10/1971) started his filmy career as early as 1932 as screen-play writer for Punjabi film, ‘Heer Ranjha’ (1932) which was a debut film for AR Kardar as the director of a talkie film.

After 1932, there appears to be a big gap in his filmy career if I go by his filmography. However, browsing through many pages of various ‘Filmindia’ issues gives me an indication that M Sadiq assisted AR Kardar all through 1932 to 1942 in his various directorial ventures, in various capacity – story/screen-play/dialogue writer, editor in addition to being one of his regular Assistant Directors.

By 1942, M Sadiq had become one of the two key assistants to AR Kardar along with SU Sunny. (SU Sunny later directed films like ‘Udan Khatola’ (1955), ‘Kohinoor’ (1960) and ‘Paalki’ (1966)). Baburao Patel, Editor of ‘Filmindia’ magazine had described them as ‘the left hand and the right hand of AR Kardar’ without identifying as to who was left hand and who was the right hand. He had also nicknamed them as ‘little Kardars’.

When AR Kardar set up his film production company, Kardar Productions in 1942 with his maiden film ‘Sharda’ (1942) as a producer-director, he gave an additional responsibility to M Sadiq as the film editor. In his next film, ’Namaste’ (1943), AR Kardar entrusted M Sadiq and SU Sunny to jointly direct the film. Kardar’s ‘Jeewan’ (1944) appears to be the first film which M Sadiq directed independently. However, this film did not do well on the box office. In the same year, Jaimini Dewan Productions gave him the opportunity to direct ‘Rattan’ (1944). The film became a box office bonanza for its producer. However, the credit for the success of the film was mainly given to the musical scores by Naushad.

From 1946 through 1950, M Sadiq directed 8 films which included ‘Shaam Savera’ (1946), ‘Daak Bangla’ (1947), ‘Kaajal’ (1948), ‘Chaar Din’ (1949) and ‘Sabak’ (1950), the last mentioned film was his first home production under the name of Sadiq Productions. In the 1950s, he directed 11 films, mostly his home productions like ‘Saiyaan’ (1951), ‘Shabaab’ (1954), ‘Musafirkhana’ (1955), “Chhoo Mantar’ (1956), ‘Mai Baap’ (1957), ‘Duniya Rang Rangeeli’ (1957) and ‘Khota Paisa’ (1958).

However, many of his home production films did not fare well on the box office. When Guru Dutt started ‘Chaudhvin Ka Chaand’ (1960), being a Muslim social film, he wanted the film to be directed by a Muslim director who was well versed in Lucknowi etiquette. Those days, M Sadiq had a lot of financial difficulties and Guru Dutt wanted to help him (as mentioned in Nasreen Munni Kabir’s documentary ‘In Search of Guru Dutt’).

‘Chaudhvin Ka Chaand’ (1960) was a box office hit film. However, the credit for the success of the film went mainly to the musical scores of Ravi with the lyrics of Shakeel Badayuni. In Hindi film industry, a director working for a producer who also happens to be an ace director would remain in his shadow. For, the people will always have a doubt whether the ace director was a ‘shadow director’ of his own film. The song sequences in the film as Abrar Alvi puts it “. . .bear the stamp of Guru Dutt. . .” (Source: ‘Ten Years with Guru Dutt’). This kind of aspersions were also made in the case of Radhu Karmakar who directed RK Films’ ‘Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai’ (1960) and of Abrar Alvi himself who directed Guru Dutt’s ‘Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam’ (1962).

In spite of the success of ‘Chaudhavin Ka Chaand’ (1960), M Sadiq did not get offers for directing the films until ‘Taj Mahal’ (1963). Once again the success of this film did not help him in his career as in this case also, the credit for the success of the film was mainly shared by its super hit songs composed by Roshan on the lyrics of Sahir Ludhianvi.

I feel that it was unfortunate that the film industry did not recognise the contribution of M Sadiq in the success of films like ‘Rattan’ (1944), ‘Shabaab’ (1954), ‘Chadhavin Kaa Chaand’ (1960) and ‘Taj Mahal’ (1963). I have seen all these films and I feel that M Sadiq had done a wonderful job as a director. Guru Dutt was indeed a master craftsman in picurisation of songs. He may have done the song picturisation himself in ‘Chaudhavin Ka Chaand’ (1960).

In my view, M Sadiq was not a novice in picturisation of song sequence in the films. Having experience of directing films for 20 years at the time when he directed ‘Taj Mahal’ (1963), I do not think that he would not have done justice to the song sequences of ‘Chaudhvin Kaa Chaand’ (1960). Just note how beautiful was his picturisation of the song Paaon Chhoo Lene Do Phoolon Ko Inaayat Hogi. It is a difficult situational song where Pradeep Kumar’s open romantic proposal has to be met with a restrained modesty of the heroine Bina Rai. In this song, the director has also to make the sequence of picturisation interesting with an added handicap of the expressionless Pradeep Kumar. Nonetheless, the director had succeeded at least for me as it is one of those songs where I like to watch and listen on the video clip rather than listening on the mp3 clip.

Again, after the success of ‘Taj Mahal’ (1963), M Sadiq had to wait for another 4 years to get the directorial assignments of ‘Bahu Begum’ (1967) and ‘Noor Jahan’ (1967). Unfortunately, both these films, despite good musical scores, did not fare well at the box office. Sometime in 1970, M Sadiq migrated to Pakistan and directed the film ‘Baharon Phool Barsaao’ (1972) under his own banner, Sadiq Productions. In a couple of Pakistani articles on the migration of film artists, it has been mentioned that M Sadiq came to Pakistan on an assignment to make ‘Bahaaron Phool Barsaao’ (1972). However, when the film was more than half way through, he left for the heavenly abode on 03/10/1971 in Lahore.

I became aware of this song only a few days back when I heard it in the voice of SD Batish. I immediately fell in love with the song for its rendition and the lyrics. In fact, its first verse led me to minutely grasp the subsequent part of the lyrics. As I was planning to present the song for the blog, somewhere I got confused with the film ‘Subah Shaam’ (1944) which has already made a debut on the blog. Since this film is not in the verge of attaining the status of a ‘yippied’ film, I felt that there was no urgency in presenting the song.

Yesterday, I heard this song once again. But this time, it was in the voice of Rafiq Ghaznavi. After checking on the website, it transpired that it was a multiple version song. It was at this stage I realised that the song in reference was from ‘Shaam Savera’ (1946) which is yet to make a debut on the Blog.

In my 3 decades of trekking in the Himalayas for soaking in the nature, I had always felt that there is Godliness in the nature – “jahaan bhagwan base”.

This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Blog Day :

3488

Post No. :

14009

In the early 1970s in Mumbai, it was quite common to see Pathan moneylenders standing outside the gates of the factories, mills, railway workshops and even some of the Government offices. Pathan moneylenders used to lend money at high interest rates, mostly to workers and subordinate staff who were in perpetual need of money. I had frequently watched them standing outside the main gate of my office, normally in pair, during the first week of every month. Their operations were always discreet without inviting any attention from the passers-by except that their distinct dress and caps would identify them to be the Pathans.

I had got the first hand information on the modus operandi of the Pathan moneylenders from one of my subordinate staff who was perpetually indebted to them. On the salary day, they would be present at the gate at the start of the office, at lunch time and the office closing time. If a borrower is not able to pay the monthly interest/principal amount, he would try to avoid the Pathans by not going out of the office during lunch time, would leave the office well before the closing time or leave late. But the network of the Pathans was so large that they would eventually catch the defaulters and get at least the interest amount by their discreet strong arm methods.

Their other occupation, that I have seen during my early years in the office, was selling dry fruits on the footpath. The Pathan would generally come around lunch time to sell the dry fruits near the gates of the office. He would continuously give high pitch commentaries describing the quality of dry fruits and revealing the benefits of consuming dry fruits. Some passers-by would stand and watch the proceedings. Amongst these bystanders I suspected that a few of Pathans’ cronies would have themselves bought few items of dry fruits to create an aura of the demand for his dry fruits.

When the things which I described above became common, the Hindi films took cognizance of such activities which normally culminate into fun songs. For example, note the second stanza of the immortal song Din Hai Suhaana Aaj Pahli Taarikh Hai in which lalaji (generally refers to money lending Pathans) is waiting for his client to repay his loan:

Very recently, I came across a similarly worded stanza in sales pitch song from the 1939 film ‘Hero No. 1’. The song is ‘Leu Ji Memsaab Hamaara Pista Bahut Achhaa’. The song is sung by actor-singer Shyam Sundar (Sr.) on the words of Pandit Anuj, is set to music by Lallubhai Nayak. The actor-singer Shyam Sundar is not to be confused with the music director Shyam Sundar. As per his filmography, Shyam Sundar (Sr.) started his career as actor with ‘Sakhi Lutera’ (1934). He worked in over 30 films – overwhelmingly during 1930s and 40s. He has sung about 20 songs on himself in the films. It is apparent that his voice is feminist. Had I not seen his videos of the songs from ‘Hunterwali Ki Beti’ (1943), I would have assumed him to be a female singer.

So the inspiration for the second stanza of the song from ‘Bhai Bhai’ (1956) referred to above was the song under discussion which came out 15 years earlier of ‘Bhai Bhai’ (1956). I guess, Pandit Anuj may have got the inspiration for the lyrics by actually observing a Pathan selling dry fruits with his sales pitch.

‘Hero No.1’ was produced by Vijay Bhatt under the banner of Prakash Pictures and was directed by Balwant Bhatt. This action film had the cast of Jayant, Gulab, Umakant, Shirin, Lallubhai Nayak, Faizi, Munshi Khanjar, Bholaram, Ranjit, Shyam Sundar etc. There were 7 songs in the film.

With this song, the film ‘Hero No.1 (1939) makes a debut in the Blog.

[Ed Note: ‘Charoli’ is also a dry fruit. It is known by other names as ‘chironji’ or ‘chirongi’. Its English name is almondette.]

This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Blog Day :

3477

Post No. :

13968

The year 1940 can be regarded as a benchmark year for Hindi film industry to assess its progress in the talkie era as it marked about a decade since talkies came into being. Although studio systems (in which artists were on the payrolls of the studios) continued, slowly the star system was evolving in which the star actor commanded the salary acccording to his success rate in box office collections. During this period, actors with star values emerged. They commanded good salary from their respective studios to ward off poaching by the competing film production companies. Films with K L Saigal, Prithviraj Kapoor, Chandramohan, Surendra, Motilal, Ashok Kumar, Durga Khote, Madhuri, Sabita Devi, Kanan Devi, Shobhana Samarth, Leela Chitnis, Naseem Bano etc were expected to be box office hits.

If one goes by the estimates done by ‘Filmindia’ magazine of prominent stars’ salaries in the early 40s, most of these stars were getting a monthly salary ranging from Rs.3000-5000/- from their respective studios. (If we relate it to the cost of indexing to 2013, the amount is equivalent to about Rs.48000-80000/- per month). With the World War-II, the cost of production of films had shot up. There was an acute shortage of raw films. Many film production companies had reported to have bought raw films in the black market.

On the one hand, the cost of film production went up, with less purchasing power at the hands of cinegoers due to World War-II, perhaps they became choosy in watching films. Those days, publicity of films was mostly by words of mouth of the cinegoers. As a result, many Hindi films with star actors failed at the box office. For example, a few films listed below with star value released in 1940 failed at the box office:

1 .Bharosa (1940) – Chandramohan, Sardar Akhtar, Mazhar Khan

2. Deepak (1940) – Prithviraj Kapoor

3. Geeta (1940) – Chandramohan, Durga Khote

4. Main Haari (1940) – Naseem Bano

5. Sajni (1940) – Prithviraj Kapoor, Sabita Devi

‘Haar Jeet’ (1940) produced under the banner of New Theatres was one such film which failed at the box office in spite of having star value and a reputed banner. The film was directed by Amar Mullick. The star cast included Kanan Devi, Pahadi Sanyal, Nawab, Nemo, Nand Kishore, Meera Dutta, Pannalal etc. The film was based on a Bengali short story ‘Shubhojog’ written by Upendranath Ganguli.

The story of the film was as under:

It is the story of two theatrical companies competing with each other. Kamala (Kanan Devi) is the star actress of the Ruby Theatre. Narendra (Pahadi Sanyal) is the star actor of the Bina Theatre. Narendra leaves Bina Theatre and joins Ruby Theatre. Here he falls in love with Kamala. They get married in a rural setting among the peasantsand stay in the rural area. In keeping with the rural setting, Narendra forbids Kamala from acting in the theatres. However, she does not heed his advice and continues to acts in the plays of the Ruby Theatre. They are separated.

After staying among the peasants for some time, Narendra also re-joins Bina Theatre. While the Bina Theatre achieves success, Ruby Theatre goes bankrupt. This is regarded as the punishment for Kamala who has refused to be a dutiful housewife. At the end, Kamala and Narendra are united.[Based on the review of the film in ‘Filmindia’ magazine, November 1940 issue with some additional inputs from ‘Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinemas’].

The ‘Filmindia’ review has blamed inept direction and a weak story line for the failure of the film. I feel that the film’s ending is a reflection on the male dominated society of rural India in the early 20th century which one would often find in Hindi films of 1930s and 1940s.

‘Haar Jeet’ (1940) had 9 songs written by Arzoo Lucknowi and Kidar Sharma. However, individual accreditation to the song is not available. It may be noted that Kidar Sharma had left New Theatres in 1937 after the completion of the shooting of ‘Vidyapati’ (1937). So, I guess, his contribution as a lyricist, if any, may be only marginal and most of songs may have been written by Arzoo Lucknowi. Songs were set to music by R C Boral.

I am presenting the first song ‘mast pawan shaakhen lahraaye’ from the film ‘Haar Jeet’ (1940) which marks the debut for the film in the Blog. The song is sung by Kanan Devi and Pahari Sanyal. The main feature of the song is that it has a long musical prelude of 1:34 and thereafter there are no musical interludes. I guess, this song may have been the earliest one to have the longest duration of the musical prelude in any Hindi film song of that time. Perhaps this record was broken by this song which had a musical prelude of 1:50.

This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Blog Day :

3474

Post No. :

13952

The name Keshavrao Dhaiber may not ring any bells for most readers of the Blog. He was not as famous as V Shantaram, one of his contemporaries and a colleague in Maharashtra Film Company and later in Prabhat Film Company. I became aware of his name only during the last 2-3 years when I was deep into the film songs of 1930s and 40s. But the name did not interest me much until recently when I came across a song from his film ‘Nand Kumar’ (1938) which made me to study his filmy career.

Kolhapur born Keshavrao Dhaiber (1890-1978) who had done a short stint in the Army as Lancer, started his filmy career in Baburao Painter’s Maharashtra Film Company, Kolhapur as an actor and a technician in the early 1920s. Here, he came in contact with V Shantaram. Both of them made their debuts as directors for a silent film– Netaji Palkar (1927) which they co-directed. In 1929, due to differences with Baburao Painter, V Shantaram and Keshavrao Dhaiber left Maharashtra Film Company and formed Prabhat Film Company along with V G Damle, Fatehlal and Sitaram Kulkarni in Kolhapur. Under this banner, Keshavrao Dhaiber and V Shantaram co-directed 3 silent films – ‘Khooni Khanjar’ (1930), ‘Rani Saheeba’ (1930) and ‘Udaykaal’ (1931). He got his first film as an independent director in ‘Zuloom’ (1931), a silent film. [Source: Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema – Ashish Rajadhyaksha].

I find from his filmography of talkie films that Keshavrao Dhaiber and V Shantaram combination worked as Cinematographer and Director, respectively for ‘Maya Machhindra’ (1932), ‘Ayodhya Ka Raja’ (1932), ‘Sinhagad’ ( Marathi,1933), ‘Sairandhri’ (1933), ‘Amritmanthan’ (1934) and ‘Chandrasena’ (1935). Dhaiber got the opportunity to independently direct his first Hindi talkie film ‘Rajput Ramani’(1936).

During the making of ‘Chandrasena (1935) and ‘Rajput Ramani’ (1936), Dhaiber got romantically involved with the films’ heroine, Nalini Tarkhad. As per the contract among the partners of Prabhat Film Company, partners were not allowed to be romantically linked with actresses who were in the payroll of the Company. Since this was a breach of contract, Dhaiber was forced to resign from the partnership of the Company. He later married Nalini Tarkhad.

It is said that the most vocal among the partners to force Dhaiber to resign from Prabhat was V Shantaram. Interestingly, in 1941, V Shantaram too got romantically linked with Jaishree Kamulkar, another actress in the payroll of Prabhat Film Company whom he married in October 1941. Soon, V Shantaram left Prabhat to form his own film company, Rajkamal Kala Mandir. While V Shantaram’s filmy career continued to flourish after he left Prabhat, same was not the case for Keshavrao Dhaiber.

After leaving Prabhat, Dhaiber formed his own film production company, Jaishree Pictures. Under this banner, he produced and directed ‘Nand Kumar’ (1938) which was made in Marathi and Hindi. He roped in A V Meiyappan (AVM) as producer and Jayantilal Thakore (probably, financier/film distributor) for the Tamil version which was also directed by Dhaiber with a Tamil speaking Assistant Director, Krishnaswami. Unfortunately, all the three versions of the film did not fare well on the box office resulting in heavy losses for him and his newly set up banner. As a result, Dhaiber had to close down his film production company.

It is interesting to note that Prabhat’s ‘Gopalakrishna’ (1938) was released just a month ahead of Dhiaber’s ‘Nand Kumar; (1938). Both had, more or less, the same mythological story. Another interesting part of these two films was that while Ram Marathe played the role of Krishna in childhood in ‘Gopalakrishna’ (1938), the same role for ‘Nand Kumar’ (1938) was played by his brother, Anant Marathe. ‘Gopalakrishna’ (1938) was the 3rd highest grosser at the box office for 1938 while ‘Nand Kumar’ (1938) failed at the box office.

After directing a couple of Marathi films in 1939, he joined Minerva Movietone and directed ‘Ulti Ganga’ (1942) and ‘Bhakta Raidas’ (1943). However, these films too failed at the box office plunging his already downward filmy career further. Dhaiber re-joined Prabhat Film Company as Production Supervisor during 1943-46. Later, he was associated with Famous Studios. His last film as a director was the Marathi film ‘Sudamache Pohe’ (1958). He also made a few documentary films for Maharashtra and Gujarat Governments. He wrote his autobiography ‘Eka Zindagichi Patkatha’ (Screen-play of a Life) which was released in 1967. Unfortunately, I could not get this book either from the publisher nor could I locate it online.

Keshavrao Dhaiber left for the heavenly abode on May 11, 1978 at a ripe age of 88.

Today, ‘Nand Kumar’ (1938) makes its debut in the Blog which was Keshavrao Dhaiber’s first Hindi film as producer-director under his own banner, Jaishree Pictures. The star cast included Durga Khote, Anant Marathe, Govindrao Tembe, Jaishree Kamulkar, Govind Kurvalikar etc. As mentioned earlier, the film was simultaneously produced in Marathi, Hindi and Tamil. While the star cast for the Marathi and Hindi versions were, more or less, the same, the Tamil version had different star cast which included T P Rajlakshmi (Yashoda), T R Mahaligam (Lord Krishna), C V V Panthulu (Nandgopan), Master Sethuraman (Krishna in childhood), T R Ramchandran etc.

The Tamil version of the film also did not do well at the box office. However, the film became the stepping stone for the debutant actors T R Mahalingam, the singer and T R Ramchandran, the comedian. Also, it was the debut film for music director S V Venkataraman. For the first time, the playback system in a Tamil film was used in this film with Lalitha Venkataraman lending her voice to the actress playing the role of Devki. [Source: The Hindu, October 12, 2007].

The song I am presenting today is from the Hindi version of ‘Nand Kumar’ (1938). Durga Khote (in the role of Yashoda) sings this unique type of the song ‘rooth gaye kyon kunwar kanhaai’. The song with prelude and interlude of conversations is not an usual lullaby but a song to assure a crying child. The song is penned by Pandit Veer and it is set to music by G P Kapoor.

This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

Blog Day :

3455

Post No. :

13856

Ardeshir Irani and his film production company, Imperial Movietone was associated with India’s first talkie film ‘Alam Ara’ (1931). In the same year, he was also associated with the first Tamil talkie film ‘Kalidas’ (1931) as a producer. Ardeshir Irani had another ‘first’ to his credit. He produced ‘Kisaan Kanya’ (1937) which was the first indigenously processed full colour film in India using Cinecolour process. Ardeshir Irani acquired the processing rights from an American Company. The film was processed in India with Imperial Movietone’s technicians under the supervision of a foreigner, WM Henius.

All these years, I was under the impression that Prabhat Film Company’s Marathi film, ‘Sairandhri’ (1933) directed by V Shantaram was the first Indian colour film. However, it transpired that this film had only some scenes in colour and the film was processed and printed in Germany.

‘Kisaan Kanya’ was directed by Moti B Gidwani. The star cast included Padma Devi, Master Nissar, Ghani, Ghulam Mohammed, Jilloo Bai, Sayed Ahmed etc. The film took one year to complete. The film was released on Saturday, January 8, 1938 at the Majestic Cinema, Mumbai. A report in Filmindia magazine mentions that there was a mad rush around the theatre for the tickets. A large number of cinegoers were disappointed as they could not get tickets. The next day, the Sunday, the scene at the theatres was no different. There was a terrible traffic jam for hours on the road leading to Majestic Cinema. Trams and cars were held up as crowd refused to move away. All the four shows of the day were houseful. The film ran for six weeks in this theatre.

The film was based on a story written by Professor Ziauddin of Shanti Niketan. Sadat Hasan Manto wrote the scenarios and dialogues. The gist of the story of the film based on a review which appeared in January 1938 issue of ‘Filmindia’ magazine is given below:

In a village, a landlord (Ghani) exploits the farmers and leaves no opportunity to rob them of their legitimate earnings. Ramu (Master Nissar), the farmer is no exception. He has been regularly exploited by the landlord. Ramdai (Zilloo Bai), the landlord’s wife is a religiously inclined and resents her husband’s actions. Bansari (Padma Devi) is a maid servant in the house of the landlord who is in love with Ramu. The romance of Bansari and Ramu go on smoothly until Ramu is arrested on a false charge of murdering the landlord. Ramdai, the landlord’s wife is aware as to who had murdered her husband. Realising that the innocent Ramu’s life would be taken away, she goes to Randhir (Ghulam Mohammed), a villain with a heart, who had actually murdered the landlord. Ramdai pleads with him to confess for the sake of Bansari, the girl who is also loved by Randhir.

In the climax, Randhir in the bravado character, confesses his crime of murdering the landlord. Ramu is released. The final scenes of the film depict the the need for the wealthy persons to come forwards to help the poor villagers of India.

The critical part of the film’s review was that the title of the film itself was not reflective of the film’s main theme as it portrayed more of the plights of village life as a whole than just of a ‘kisaan kanya’. Padma Devi had only a limited role in the film. In the film’s publicity, she was portrayed as ‘Colour Queen of India’. In spite of huge publicity drive that preceded the release of the film and superb technical aspects, the film did not meet the high expectation from the cinegoers due to the weak story line and dialogues as the reviewer said. Probably, this film was an early attempt to portray the poverty and crime in Indian villages and the film audience were not ready for this theme.

With this film, things became clear that unless the film had robust story and dialogues to go with it, colouration of the film would not add value for the producers and distributors of the films. Nonetheless, ‘Kisaan Kanya’ was regarded as ‘moderately successful film’ at the box office. Ardeshir Irani once again tried the colour in ‘Mother India’ (1938) after which the colour processing was abandoned. The box office success of Mehboob Khan’s ‘Aan’ (1951) revived the interest of film makers to produce the colour films. However, it took another decade for the film producers to shift to colour films in large numbers.

The film has 10 songs composed by Ram Gopal Pandey. Name of the song writer is not known. None of the songs were available on YT and similar websites until I made a video of one song from the film with mp3 clip with me and uploaded on YT. So, here is the first song “Dil Bas Mein Nahin Hai Mera” from the film sung by Padma Devi who had donned the role of Bansari, the ‘kisaan kanya’ in the film. The prelude to the song starts with a vilambit laya dhun (slow tempo tune) on sitar. The prelude is of the duration of 1:15 which leaves the time for the song of just two stanzas.

I could not get much information on Padma Devi’s background and her later life. I got some tit bits from a letters to the editor column of ‘Filmindia’ magazine. Padma Devi (real name: Neelima) was a Bengali artist who came to Bombay (Mumbai) sometime in 1930. She initially worked in the silent films, first as a junior artist then as a stunt actress. If I go by her early talkie films and the way she got publicity in ‘Filmindia’ magazine, I guess, Baburao Patel had a role in promoting her filmy career. Her first four talkie films were directed by Baburao Patel. Sadat Hasan Manto, in his book ‘Stars from Another Sky’ also mentioned about the ‘puppet on a string’ like relationship between Baburao Patel and Padma Devi. In the 1940s, her filmy career seems to have declined considerably.

With this song, ‘Kisaan Kanya’ (1937) and Padma Devi make debut in the blog.

[Ed Note: Although the name of the music director, Ramgopal Pandey, is also appearing for the first time. However, there is one more music director with the name Ramgopal, who has already made his debut on the blog. A quick scrutiny of the Geet Kosh reveals that starting with 1931, the two music director names viz., Ramgopal and Ramgopal Pandey, appear contemporaneously. We request knowledgable readers to please add more information about this music director(s), and clarify whether these two names are of the same individual, or two different people.]

This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

The first gramophone recording of songs in India was done in November 1902. However, the records were marketed only in 1903. A cursory glance at the various issues of Society of Indian Records Collectors (SIRC) indicates that early gramophone recordings were confined mostly to songs sung by ‘Bais’, ‘Devis’, ‘Jaans’, ‘Begums’ etc who mainly belonged to professions like courtesans, dancing, private concert singers etc. In view of their background, they recorded mostly semi-classical songs in the genre of Thumri, Dadra, Ghazals, Bhajans, Hori, Chaiti, Folks music etc. These genres of songs were popular among the masses thanks to theatres where some of the above mentioned singers acted in the plays. The popularity of these songs gave gramophone recording companies profitable business opportunity.

With the advent of talkies in 1931, the genre of semi-classical songs found place in the films as well. And who could have sung such songs better than the popular ‘gramophone’ singers like Jahanara Kajjan, Mukhtar Begum, Begum Akhtar, Mallika Pukhraj, Mushtari Bai, Jaddan Bai, Waheedan Bai, Indubala, Kamala Jharia etc. They found avenue to become actor-singer in the films of the 1930s and 40s.

In the initial period of talkies, music directors were mostly from the theatre background. A cursory perusal of the available songs of the films released during early 1930s reveals that their song compositions were mostly influenced by semi-classical genres like ghazals, thumris, dadras, bhajans etc. Some of the songs in films during this period were customised based on the popular songs sung by the semi-classical singers. There are many such instances from 1930s through 1960s. I will not go into the detailed listing. They are still in vogue even now in the guise of remix songs. However, I wish to share a few of them from films of early 1930s which came to my notice while writing this article:

1. Lagat karejwa mein chot phool gajra na maaro re from the film MADHURI (1932) sung by Chanda Bai. Unfortunately, the gramophone record for this song was not issued. It is based on a traditional bandish in raag Bhairavi which I guess, Chanda Bai may have sung umpteen times during her association with Parsi Theatres in the 1920s. By the way, Chanda Bai was Begum Akhtar’s first inspiration to become actor-singer when she was barely 7 years old.

2. Raam rang rang le mann aatm rang rang le mann from the film BHARATI MATA(1932). Again, the song is not available. Probably, the gramophone record may not have been issued for this song. I strongly feel that this Hindi version song may have been based on a popular Bhajan in raag Yaman sung by Panditrao Nagarkar in Marathi musical play ‘Sangeet Tulsidas’ (1928). This bhajan was made more popular by Pandit Bhimsen Joshi in the later years.

4. Koyaliya mat kar pukaar karjewa laage kataar from the film JAWAANI KAA NASHA (1935) was sung by Begum Akhtar in the film but the gramophone record was not issued. Later, she recorded this Dadra in 78 RPM record as non-filmy song and also a fuller length (over 10 minutes) in concerts which was also recorded as non-filmy song, probably in early 50s.

My emphasis in this article is to show that the inspirations for the filmy songs especially during the early period of talkies, by and large, came from scores of non-filmy semi-classical songs which were recorded during 1902 to say 1940.

Now let me talk about one more inspired song, inhi logon ne le leena dupatta mera which became very popular in 1972 when the film PAAKEEZAH (1972) was released. The song is still popular as a mujra song. At that time, I was not aware that a similarly worded song was sung by Shamshad Begum in the film HIMMAT (1941) until 2012. I wrote an article on the song in the Blog on the next day of my becoming aware of this song. The song was also repeated in AABROO (1943). The credit for the lyrics went to Majrooh Sultanpuri, Aziz Kashmiri and Tanveer Naqvi, respectively in the order of the films’ names which appear above. Of course, all the lyricists have made some minor changes in the lyrics.

During the discussion on the article mentioned above, Arun ji had mentioned that this was a traditional song sung in kothas (by courtesans). I had also mentioned in my article that the Shamshad Begum’s version gave a feel of a kotha song. After about 5 years since I wrote the article, it is now more or less confirmed that this is indeed a traditional kotha song. For this, I thank Girdharilal Vishwakarma ji for making available the traditional version of the song on YT about three months back.

Today, I am presenting a non-filmy version of ‘inhi logon ne le leena dupatta mera’ (1921) sung in Dadra style by Akhtari Jaan of Lucknow, a courtesan. Other than this, I have no information on Akhtari Jaan. It seems, her name has been mixed up with that of Akhtari Bai (Begum Akhtar) on the internet.

The lyrics of Akhtari Jaan’s version the last stanza has somewhat different wordings as against wordings of Shamshad Begum version. I assume that Aziz Kashmiri has made changes in the last stanza in Shamshad Begum’s version. Akhtari Jaan has rendered the Dadra with aalaaps. The name of the music director is not known. With only harmonium and percussion as musical instruments, I guess even the tune may be a traditional one.

After listening to the four versions of this song, Lata Mangeshkar’s version of the song still remain popular due to a better voice, a better orchestration and the improved technical support available for the song recording.

This non-filmy song becomes the second oldest recorded song on the Blog.

This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.

During the last two years or so, I have been working on a major exercise of presenting rare songs from films released in the 1940s on the Blog. In the process, I became aware of some of the productions houses (called banners), producers, directors, actors, singers, lyricists and music directors etc that were unknown to me earlier. One of the little known banners which I came to know about during the last few months was Sunrise Pictures. But I had no idea about the owner/s of this banner.Read more on this topic…